the valiant never taste of death
by kaaterina petrova
Summary: She doesn't think she's ever stopped running. / katherine-centric


**a/n:** it's been such a long time i don't even know what to say. so, as it may be aware or not to you guys, **oceansofoswald,** **kcsmutstation** and i are using each other to pull ourselves together and actually write for once! it's been fun though exhausting and it took me forever to edit this - even then, i still don't think it's anywhere near perfect

 **more a/n** : to be honest, i've no idea what made me start trying to figure out kat anyway - could've been the absolute cockup julie plec made of her character in season five or how annoyed i was about her death being "celebrated" by the mystic falls gang, those problematic hypocrites. ah well, i've given up on tvd too long to ever get truly mad about it anymore but at least, it led to this?

 **even more a/n** : seriously, i feel like i've just thrown up and this is the result. read on if you dare! ;D

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 **the valiant never taste of death**

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 _Game on._

 **THE VAMPIRE DIARIES,** ** _KATHERINE PIERCE_**

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 _Cowards die many times before their deaths;_ _ **the valiant never taste of death**_ _but once._

 **WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,** ** _JULIUS CAESAR_**

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Katherine dances in the grand ballroom with the lords Niklaus and Elijah Mikaelson to the sounds of tinkling harps and the alabaster chandeliers limned in gold. She spins and laughs with their hearts in her fist, or so she imagines.

And then she runs.

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"I'm new to town," she says shyly, struggling with her Bulgarian accent as it threatens to strangle her words. Katerina looks up at the handsome lord, feeling her heart stutter a little. "My lord."

His smile is wolfish. "I hope your stay will be hospitable," he says. "If there is anything you need, call for Niklaus Mikaelson, Katerina." He rolls her name in his perfectly accented tongue as if it is a particular rich wine, his voice smooth and silvery like clear water running over rocks.

Katerina watches him leave with narrowed eyes like a hawk. That is a man, she thinks, with power curled into his fist like a motionless stone. Perhaps he will be the salvation in this new lonely life of hers, the thin golden tentative line of hope in cold and blustery England.

Later, she will find his brother and she will dance with him and he will be as charming as they say, perhaps even more so. Elijah Mikaelson will give her his heart and Katerina will repay him by keeping it in her possession for five hundred years. She will run away from these two monsters pretending at men and she will never tell him that in return for his heart, he has hers.

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One time, she is described as a glacial beauty in a debutante ball.

It is quite possibly one of the best compliments she has ever received. Katherine sweeps in her gown of creamiest rose curling gracefully, dances in a gold-soaked ballroom in Paris. She is amidst the wealthy, with their silver spoons still hanging out of their pouted, painted lips, and the grandly privileged. The ladies titter and surround her with their sugared compliments and snippets of information and the room lightens with the lustrous strings of harps and violins, soft and melodious as though rimmed in gold; Katherine laps it all up like the smug, elegant cat she is.

"Oh, my lady," the Princess Marie Thérèse de Choiseul of Monaco giggles into her glass, "but you are turning _heads_." She is dressed in a gown of deepest blue, with transparent trailing skirts; the princess raises a gloved hand to admire Katherine's dress with unabashed desire.

"That is what _a glacial beauty_ ought to do." Katherine smiles mischievously. "Do you not think?"

The Princess nods eagerly and whispers to the troupe of ladies around them, their heads held high as if holding imaginary crowns. There are talks of the Queen Marie de Antoinette but Katherine does not heed them; the one meeting she found with the little slip of a girl was disappointingly bland. The meeting with her _husband_ , now that she found more interesting. Louis was a philanderer and wasted on such a devoted girl that Katherine had felt tempted to empty the contents of her glass over his head and eat him. Speaking of wine…

"I find I am thirsty," Katherine murmurs and finds a waiter at her side, immediately. She smiles a little wider and thinks, this is what I was born for. To be loved and admired and wanted. When she picks up her glass, there is a card at the bottom of the tray, a snippet of a message lined in gold and blood, and the waiter's eyes are glassy.

A new noble family has moved in, swirling up curious whispers; _Niklaus Mikaelson has her scent_. Katherine sips at her crystal glass delicately and tips the scales in her favour.

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The nobility is called to crumble at her command and Katherine smiles to herself as she flees the destruction. Her skirts trailing around her legs, she accepts the hand of a lovestruck servant boy in the night and widens her smile a little for him.

"Thank you, Olivier," she says, her French a perfect lull, so perfect it reminds her fleetingly of a time when her accent was rough like trying to draw jagged rocks together and her fingers stained in ink, not blood.

The boy's breath is caught, staring at her so much he almost forgets her hand is still in his grasp. Even as Katherine seats herself in the gilded carriage, sparkling in the light of the old moon and stars, she clears her throat delicately. A flush crawls from the column of his throat to his cheeks, staining them a loud red; Olivier lets go of her fingers quickly.

"I'm sorry, my lady," Olivier says in a rush; Katherine tilts her head at him. She could eat him, drain him completely so that his body breaks and she fling it over into the rivers, running the waters red. The thought is fleeting, brief. She shakes her head and says, "Come, Olivier, we must away."

She must be clever and leave no marks, no trails. Faster than Klaus, smarter than Elijah. Better than Rebekah. Her life and soul depends upon it; she will never have her throat ripped out over some rock to make her enemy's life even stronger. The sun is coming up, Katherine realises, and calls to Olivier to make the horses ride faster. She uses a gloved hand to pull down the curtains of her carriage, pauses to look outside for one last time.

The French Revolution is a gloried bloodbath, staining those beautifully stoned cobbled streets, flushed red in the pale light of a grey dawn. Already, her handiwork produces fast results though really, Katherine thinks, she has the humans to thank for it all. The guillotine is stained a permanent flaming scarlet; the Princess Marie's white diamond necklace shattering as it falls to the ground, stained in flecks of dirt and red.

Katherine continues pulling the curtains down, a small smirk flitting about her face. Humans were always such stray pitiful things.

"A little faster, Olivier."

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Anastasia tells her the story of the chandelier, at her behest.

It tinkles and shimmers in the slight breeze, lingering overhead as the two girls lie, sprawled on the graceful glass staircase. They are hiding in plain sight from Anastasia's scholars and nurses who are running all over the floors, trying to look for her. The servants are under strict instruction to not let a whisper pass through their lips; they move about the ballroom, wiping away stains and dusting quickly. A gloved hand ruffling her skirts, Katherine winks at one of the servants who immediately flush a stained red and grins to herself.

"Imported from France," the little princess tells her, with wide eyes. She stares up at the chandelier, fascinated and her fingers linger over the crystal glass of water, as she continues, "Papa says we are to have elegant balls and parties and I am to have at least six new dresses tailored for me! Oh, but isn't it exciting, Katherine?"

"Katherine?" Katherine echoes, smile still painted on her face. She forgets to breathe, her heart clamouring away in its little barbed nest of bones, and suddenly the servants around her look less like servants and more like a fatal trap. "Whatever makes you call me that?"

Anastasia lets out a laugh, harmonious like the lilting strings of a romantic harp, like clear water running over rocks. "Oh, Katherine," the princess says, her cobalt blue eyes suddenly becoming glassy and unseeing. "He says Katerina was a much better name."

There is an uproar at the palace gates and Katherine's heart pounds, a trapped spider caught in her own web.

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"You enjoy it," Rebekah says lazily, examining her perfectly manicured nails.

She fixes the gauzy tattered curtains blowing in the light breeze with a critical eye. The earthy scent of wild roses fills the air, fresh and youthful as the Original wants to be again. It mingles with the cold acrid smell of cooling fires and smoking guns, sickening and choking to the throat.

Katherine doesn't dare to breathe, back pressed against the soft crumbling brick, still smoking of the roaring red fires that had consumed them whole.

"Nik and Elijah chasing you through the centuries, dropping everything for little old you."

Jealousy, Katherine thinks. She smirks to herself; what a twisted, tainted little poison of a thing.

"I'm loyal to Nik, you know that," Rebekah continues airily, long slim fingers pulling out a soft white cigarette. She lights the thing, curling tendrils of dove grey smoke wafting towards where Katherine hides, the sharp acrid smell almost making her choke. "But I'm also loyal to Elijah. Always and forever after all." She inhales and blows softly, fragile wisps of silvery smoke framed in the cold morning air.

Katherine blinks amidst her confusion. Could it be—

A golden silence hangs between them, thick and heavily stifling. It breaks by the chirping of a blackbird, a trilling sound that jars the tense atmosphere and shatters it like glass.

Rebekah crushes her cigarette gracefully under one black high heeled suede boot. She turns to look at where Katherine is hiding, in the secret compartment in the walls of the fallen Russian palace, where the rebels had stormed the place and turned it over, blood soaking the red bricks and glass.

For a moment she will later regret and deem silly, Katherine thinks she sees Rebekah Mikaelson.

Not the Original vampire who found out she'd taken refuge with the House of Romanov, disarming them with her mischievous smile and playful antics; not the merciless killer who'd promptly orchestrated the fall of an entire empire just to root out the doppelganger from within an incandescent palace, outlined in the irresistible gold of a gleaming sunrise. She sees a girl, just a girl who wants to _live_.

Rebekah cants her head up to the opulent chandelier where it swings, dangerously precarious, limned in the pale light of the rising dawn, the sky flecked with gold and light blue. She gives a little sigh. "This is only for Elijah," Rebekah promises, her voice a harsh cracked thing. "You have a day, doppelganger. Use it wisely."

Then the Original is gone. She leaves nothing but the thick scent of musty smoke, mingled with the classic fragrance of wild roses and delicate violets lingering behind.

Katherine thinks desperately, _a trap_.

It must be, it has to be.

Yet, when she takes a tentative step out of her hiding place, the only sound she hears is the crumbling pieces of the arched golden ceiling.

Katherine seizes her opportunity and runs for her life. She flits the ballroom, just as the chandelier comes crashing to the ground in an elegant aria of cacophonous, white cut crystals and shattering clear glass, spraying the ballroom with clouds of silvery ash, framed in slants of golden dawn light.

She sends the Original a box of the finest cigars when she gets to a safe place and they never speak of it again.

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When she looks at Stefan Salvatore, for the first time in centuries, Katherine feels her heart stammer to life, her mind a soft rose-pinked blank.

The boy with the leaf-green eyes brushes the dirt off his trousers and straightens to tip his hat politely. Katherine feels herself grow deliciously warm and lets her smile become just a little more flirtatious, lowering her eyes coquettishly. She leans forward so the lingering glows of the red and purple sunset light her chest, lining her chocolate-brown curls in a softened gold.

As soon as the carriage passes out of sight and she can no longer see the boy with the broad shoulders and eyes like clear emeralds straining to look at her, Katherine turns to Emily. "Do you think the Salvatores will want to take in a poor little orphan girl?"

Katherine's red smile turns conniving, sharper with teeth, a smile that Emily returns slowly and somewhat uncertainly.

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For a while, there is only the sound of cutlery clattering on pristine plates. Katherine sips her wine, an oaky white delicacy that leaves a dark, stiflingly smoky sensation in the back of her throat, and stops herself quickly from pulling a face of distaste.

"A fantastic choice of wine, Mr Salvatore," she compliments handsomely, watching the way the older Salvatore looks pleased. Katherine lets her eyes drift curiously to the boy across the mahogany dining table, coloured in a deep wine-red, and watches, with a small smile, how he frantically eats, barely looking at her.

"Thank you very much," he says, satisfied. "Ms Pierce, now, where did you say you were from? Stefan, would you pass the olives?"

She draws her eyes away reluctantly, a rich smile settling on her lips. The glowing light of the white candles flicker, casting a lovely glow about the room and deliberately illuminating her face in an aureate gleam. Katherine answers in a quiet, sweet tone, almost like how Katerina Petrova used to speak, she thinks in alarm.

"Stefan, I said the _olives_. You have the Italian stallion in your blood, boy – you should know what olives are. Really, Ms Pierce? Oh, that's very fascinating…"

Katherine glances at Stefan from under hooded eyes and realises the Italian, green-eyed boy has been shooting her curious looks for all of dinner. For a moment, she allows her heart to quicken and winks at him, revelling in the way his mouth drops open comically. He's so innocent and quiet and beautiful; she's always been a fool for those.

When Damon interrupts the dinner party, he does so with a raucousness his father despairs in, eyes glinting a wild cobalt blue. Katherine eyes the smartly cut soldier's suit and looks to Stefan, her heart running a stormy horse's race in her chest. Perhaps, her stay could be extended, if only for the sake of a little heartache.

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"We will be together again soon, Stefan," she promises, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek.

Katherine looks over at Damon's crumpled body, both brothers limned in the luminescent glow of the silvery moonlight. "And thus with a kiss," she whispers, feeling delightfully dramatic as she butchers one of Stefan's favourite sonnets, "I give you life."

Taking a deep breath and inhaling the cold, crisp air deeply, Katherine caresses Damon's cheek affectionately. The carriage for her is coming, rounded wheels rumbling along well-worn tracks, and she hasn't a moment to lose, not if, as she suspects, Klaus is hot on her heels. Yet, still she lingers. For a moment, Katherine smiles to herself, running her gloved fingers over a stray olive before tucking it into Stefan's breast pocket.

Years later, she reads about it when Katherine's nosing through his journals and to Stefan's quiet dismay and mirth, doesn't stop making olive jokes regardless.

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In the whorehouse, the smile she throws towards the boy is biting and with teeth. "And what do they call you?"

"Jack," he replies, bashful. He doesn't meet her eyes but his jaw is strong and firm, his eyes a deep brown that reminds her of another.

" _Jack_ ," Katherine says, rolling the word in her mouth, her perfect British accent accentuating each letter. She smiles a little bitterly when she sees the effect she has on him; another boy, another notch, another _death_. "You're a looker, Eli—Jack."

It was always a gamble to go back but the boy is charmed with her, the sweet little thing. It must be his first time in a whorehouse and Katherine smiles cheekily at the thought, running a long slender finger around his face. Jack's eyes widen when she rummages through the red sheets of the bed, bringing out a small shining white-handled blade.

"Do you want to play a game with me, Jack?" she asks and suddenly drops to a vicious snarl, the veins hardening to a stiff red around her face.

Jack's face is a picture.

She dons new names and titles as though they were thin, trailing dresses, promptly discarded like scraps of scented paper. When she leaves England the next day on a ship with blue sails, she hears the boy she left alive is painting streets red with her knife and thinks, _I knew a Ripper who would put you to shame, Jack._

Katherine charms and schemes her way through the years, with a biting smile of steel and the sweetest, widest doe-eyes anyone can fall for. She leaves behind bodies broken like the shattered crystals of the old swinging chandelier of the palace and humans with their minds twisted and turned over.

She never apologises.

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You will never have me, Katherine thinks fiercely.

She watches with dark hooded eyes, from the safety of the curling canopy of the forest, as Elena's neck is torn. The doppelganger's body crumples in Klaus' arms, snapped like a fragile twig, her long hair swaying in the breeze, limned in the glowing red embers of the fires. Blood so intoxicating, so strong Katherine can smell it from where she hides, drenches the old rock completely and the hybrid lets out a shattering roar. He drops the young girl; Elena's lifeless body falls to the ground, stained rubies seeping into the dirt around her neck.

Katherine's eyes linger on Elena's fallen body, the last of her kin.

She'll say she feels nothing and that would be a lie, but she is used to those, silver-tongued fox that she is. She drinks a burning golden shot for the girl who had her face and died for it, and braces herself to run for another five hundred years again.

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 **the end**

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 **stop doing a/ns, damnit:** hope you enjoyed it as much as i enjoyed writing it!


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